This is the sort of thing that makes me slap me slap myself and wonder why it hadn’t been implemented earlier.

Official tournaments are coming to Xbox Live this year! Woot!

Microsoft is partnering with Virgin Gaming to bring official tournaments of your favorite games to Xbox Live. These will be available to Xbox Live Gold subsribers and will feature both free-to-play tournaments and paid ones.

You read that right: you will be able to put your skills to the test and make real money. Hell, you’ll actually have a proper reason to rage about lag now.

Virgin Gaming began in 2012 through a partnership with WorldGaming.com and already boasts a community of over 1.3-million members, ranging from the casual to the pros. You can already sign up and participate in their tournaments, but the launch of an Xbox app will make the whole deal much easier and simply accessible from your Xbox dashboard.

Small caveat. Cash games are not currently avaiable in the following US states due to local regulations: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont. Don’t expect that to change any time soon, but you can still participate for bragging rights.